Ice Inside a Grieving Girl
by annicaspoon
Summary: What do you say to someone who has lost so much? How do you stop them from freezing up? When a tragedy hits one of the Titans, these are the questions they need to try and answer.


**I have NO idea where this came from...**

**oOo**

It was over barely before it had even begun. Ships were darting around, shooting at each other. Explosions on the surface could be seen from far away. It was chaos.

But everything stopped at the first flash. More flashes and explosions could be seen, seeming out of place with no sound following them, and in an instant, it was over.

A whole planet, scattered throughout space.

The home, culture and people of one of the Teen Titans, gone.

oOo

She is numb. Empty. Bare of all feeling except the deadening weight of loss on her chest. She is just a shell. A chrysalis, with nothing inside.

A soft knock on her door. Silkie nudges at her leg. She doesn't move. The door swooshes open, a sliver of light and life slipping through and settling on her bed.

"Star?" Beast Boy is standing just inside the door. "I brought something for you to eat." His voice, just a whisper, passes over her, but doesn't touch her. The frigid silence drops the temperature in the room by many degrees. Soon the warmth of the changeling becomes too overwhelmed by the cold, and he backs off.

"I'll just leave it here," He whispers, placing the tray next to her on the bed and walking back through the door, and closing it, extinguishing the light and leaving the alien princess in her dungeon of dark, icy grief.

She's starting to freeze up.

oOo

"Wanna talk about it?"

…

"You gotta talk about it sometime."

…

"Star?"

Cyborg is sitting in front of her. He's been there for ten minutes, prodding, urging her to say something. To show something. To _feel_ something.

He gets no response. The girl he's looking at is frozen in place, frozen in time. Frozen into an empty cold statue. Frozen in the nothingness of grief and heartache.

"C'mon Star…"

…

A metal hand rests on her shoulder. "We're all here for you, whenever you need us." A gentle squeeze. "You know that, right?"

…

The hand is removed and his weight is shifted from the bed. Footsteps go out the door, and down the hallway. And then all that is left is silence.

She is ice.

oOo

She can hear their conversation, muffled, from the other side of the wall. The rooms in the tower had never really been soundproofed; it was always easy to hear private conversations.

"You have to talk to her."

"I can't. It's my fault this happened."

"It's no-one's fault. If you had changed your mind, we'd all be dead. Stop feeling guilty and talk to her."

"What makes you think she'd want to see me right now? She had to see her whole planet destroyed because of a stupid call I made!"

"You're the only one that's going to be able to get her out of her room and talk about it."

"She might come out if you talk to her."

"Robin…"

"She probably hates me right now! She's probably blaming me for everything and she has every right to!"

"The only thing she can blame you for is not being there for her sooner."

"…"

"She needs you."

"I can't." His voice, a whisper. "Please Raven."

A sigh. "I'm not doing this for you. You better realise that."

Raven's purposeful footsteps come down the hall. She slides the door open, walks through and slides it back closed. She quickly takes in the dark room and shakes her head.

"If you don't open some curtains soon enough, you're going to end up paler then me," She mutters, walking over to the windows and pulling the curtains open. Sunlight streams through, brightening the room and hitting the alien princess in the face. Raven sits in front of her and looks her square in the face.

"You're not going to say anything." It's a statement, not a question. Raven's smart, she knows what people do. She knows that it's a futile effort to try and get her to talk. "Well, I'm not going to say anything either," Raven says, crossing her legs. Her eyes hold Starfire's until the grieving girl is forced look away.

They sit in silence, Starfire half expects the younger girl to get to cold in the dungeon and leave like the others, but she knows that Raven is used to the cold. Raven is used to numbness, to making herself feel nothing. Raven understands it.

"It's easier," she whispers. Raven eyes widen as Starfire speaks. "It's easier feeling nothing."

Raven frowns. "No it isn't," she murmurs, "you may think it is, it might feel like it is, but it isn't."

"I don't want to feel it."

"You have to."

"You never do." Raven looks down at her hands.

"Everyone feels. Even me." She glances back up at Starfire. "And the longer you stop yourself from feeling it, the worse it's going to be when you finally do." She looks back down. "And don't say that I don't know. I do." She gets up and walks towards the door.

"I don't blame him." Raven stops at the door. "Can you tell him that?"

Raven's eyes narrow. "Tell him yourself." She walks out the door, not bothering to close the curtains back up, leaving the light still shining in Starfire's face.

As the door closes, a tear drops from the corner of her eye. Slowly followed by more.

She's starting to melt.

oOo

Two days pass. Cyborg, Beast Boy and Raven take turns visiting her. The hours pass, slowly, agonizingly, and night falls on the second day.

There's a soft knock on her door in the middle of the night, and Raven quietly walks in.

"Everyone else is asleep," she murmurs, "you need to eat something. And, no offense," she glances away, "but it's kinda starting to stink in here." She dumps a towel in front of Starfire and moves to walk away. "I'll be in my room if you need anything." She leaves the room and walks down the hallway. As her footsteps fade, Starfire wills her body to break from its frozen cast and move out of the icy prison.

She takes Raven's advice and goes straight for a shower. Running the hot water full blast to scrub off the dirt, sweat, tears and numbness of the past days. Once she feels finally fresh, she moves into the common room to get something to eat.

A soft light greets her as she walks into the common room. Figuring Raven left the light on for her, Starfire doesn't look up. She continues to watch her feet as she's walking, to make sure they don't collapse underneath her.

She looks up as she gets into the kitchen to see their team leader leaning on the bench drinking a cup of coffee. She freezes. He hasn't noticed her yet. She moves a foot back slightly and is about to leave the room when he turns around to walk to the fridge and runs straight into her.

"I'm sorry…" He stops as he sees her for the first time in days.

He's not wearing his mask. His eyes are ice blue, vivid in moonlight, dark bags underneath.

"It's not your fault…" It's not you fault that you walked into me. It's not your fault my people are gone. It's not your fault that my planet has been disintegrated. She wants to say all these things but the words stick in her throat.

"Star…" Robin places his mug on the stove and turns to her. His hands hover, unsure of whether to touch her or not. "Star, I am…" He looks at her desperately. "I am so, so sorry.

"I should have gotten us there faster, I should have looked at evacuating everyone, I should have done something, anything, to stop this from happening.

"But I didn't. I was stupid, and now you're suffering for it and – God Star – I'm sorry. I'm _so _sorry." By the time he's finished, the eyes of both of them are tearing up. Starfire throws her arms over his shoulders and clings on tight. He returns the hug and kisses the top of head as she cries into his shoulder.

"It's not your fault," she whispers through sniffles. "It's not your fault. I don't blame you."

As they stand in the kitchen, Robin holding her, all the ice that she has created inside herself over the past few days, shatters into many tiny little piece and melts before flooding out through her tears.

**oOo**

**God it's so hard to find something to say to a person who's feeling loss. I found out a while ago that my ex-boyfriend's dad is dying. You just never know what to say to someone who's feeling that when you haven't felt it yourself.**

**Anyway, like it? hate it? want to chop it up into a million tiny pieces with a meatcleaver? let me know!**

**~Clair-Rae**


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